Improvement in plug-cutters for wood-workers



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

IMPROVEMENT lN PLUG-CUTTERS FOR WOOD-WORKERS.

Specication forming part of Letters Patent No. 117,786, dated August 8, 1871; antedated July 24, 1871. 1

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, DANIEL S. KNIFFEN, of West Camden, Oneida county, State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Plug-Gutters for Wood-Workers 5 and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description thereof, reference being had to the accompanying drawings making a part of this specication and their letters of refl erence marked thereon, in which- Figure l represents a perspective view of the tool. Fig.2 is a longitudinal cross-section of the same.

Carriage-body makers and others having occasion to use plugs for covering' the heads of screws generally use a punch similar to a wadcutter, which mashes the wood more or less, or a gouge-cutter with a brace, which almost invariably cuts the plugs in unequal sizes, and in either case the plugs so made are at the expense of considerable time and are attended with considerable imperfections.

The nature of my invention consists of aplugcutter to be used in a brace and operated on a board or panel held by avise or laid on a bench. The said cutters consist of a shank with a proper taper end to lit a brace, and is furnished with a pair of adjustable knives or cutting-lips lined with set-screws, and an impin ging center steadiment secured by a set-screw over a slotted or ilattened seat made on one side ofthe said steadiment. The said steadinient works into the head of the tool and projects out to near the ends of the cutters, and is free to move back within the hole in which it works. The said hole is about two and one-half inches deep, more or less, and contains a rubber spring, which acts against the inner end of the steadiinent to press it out when the tool is not being used, but which will yield and sulfer the steadiment to enter further in when the tool is being operated. As a substitute for the rubber a coiled spring may be used.

To enable others skilled in the art to make and use my invention, I will proceed to describe it in reference to the drawings and their letters of reference, the same letters indicating like parts.

In the drawings, A, Figs. 1 and 2, represents the shank or body of the tool, with one end furnished with the usual taper to enter a brace. The said body of the tool is provided with two projections, a a', which are pierced with square holes, made parallel with the axis of the tool and each other to receive the cutters D D. The said cutters have their cutting parts below their bodies formed in such a way as to crowd on the sides of the plug when the plug is being cut, so as to upset the fiber of the wood to give the plug ataper-like form, that its end may be readily inserted into the hole the plug is to ll. Being thus upset, the plug will swell after it has been glued and inserted in its place, and will, by the dampness in the glue, assume a circumference equal to that first described by the points of the cutters D Df. These cutters are adjustable, and are kept iixed by the set-screws s s. The center of the body A is pierced to receive a rubber, O, which is to act as a spring to keep the center steadiment B pressed out. The said steadiment B is provided with a center point, c, which enters the plug to be cut and steadies the tool. A slotted or rlattened seat is made on one side of the steadiment, as shown by dotted lines d, Fig. 2. A set-screw, o, Fig. 1, screws through a side of the body of the tool, and sits down on the seat d and prevents the steadiment B from being drawn or thrown out.

The mode of operating this tool is as follows: A piece of thin panel or board is secured in a vise or on a bench. rlhe tool is to be set in and operated with a brace. The center point c is placed against the panel from which the plugs are to be made. I/Jhen the tool is pressed and revolved, and while bein g so pressed and revolved, the cutters D D cut in one and -the same circle, and all the while the rubber O is being compressed by the pressure on the steadiinent B from the brace, and as the depth of the cut is being increased the said steadiment retreats in its hole after the compressed rubber. This opera-tion is continued until'the plug is cut entirely free from the panel. Having described my invention, itis to be understood that both/the holes made in the sides of the body of the tool for holding the cutters D D are always to be placed at equal distance from the center of the center B, and are -to run in a line parallel with the said center; and that the cutters belonging to this invention must always have their cuttingblades made wedge-shaped in one direction, and be furnished with lance-shaped cutting-points, as has been described, to give the taper form to a plug; and that the permission of the blades to enter the wood in the process of cutting is given only by the center B retreating constructed and arranged as and for the purpose within the body of the tool 5 and specied.

What I claim, and desire to secure by Letters DANIEL S. KNIFFEN. Patent is i The tool for cutting plugs, herein described, Witnesses: consisting,` of the body A, center B, spring C, ALEX. SELKIRK,

screw d, and cutters D D', when 21.11 the parts are J As. A. BUGKBEE, J r. 

